However the goals have to be modest. We cannot be there to "control" or pacify the region but rather to destabilize our adversaries there. Additionally, if we are going to have some troops there, it is not ethical or moral to have them in country without enough support to ensure their relative safety or enough means to let them complete the mission they are sent there to do. I don't hold the view that if we just left Afghanistan and Pakistan to their own devices that it would defuse enough anti-American sentiment that their cause would go away. On the other hand, I think having a standing force there is legitimate. We never really finished what we started after 9/11 because we literally dropped the ball when we went to Iraq. Just because we made that blunder doesn't mean the original problem went away.

Honestly, I hate Al Qaeda and the Taliban. I hate everything they stand for. Just because they are Bush's enemy does not make them the friend of liberals, anywhere. If you think George Bush violated your human rights, living under the Taliban would be like that to an other wordly extreme. I couldn't imagine for a second being a father in that country of my two beautiful daughters knowing they would be deprived of dignity, self-worth, and an education. If anything, Al Qaeda is organized crime fueled by a sick interpretation of religion. It is not in anyone's interest, anywhere, to allow them to foment their oppression through brutality and fear. They have been allowed to re-organize and re-empower themself in Pakistan because of Bush's policies. This is not acceptable.

But further drawing down in Afghanistan will further allow the Taliban to consolidate their position in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Do we really want a Taliban run nuclear Pakistan? We don't have to kill all the Taliban, nor do we have to "rebuild" Afghanistan or democratize it. We just need to keep constant pressure on them so that they can't have open and free reign of the villages and cities there in order to subjugate and rule by terror meanwhile gathering resources to strike again.

I'm not a MIHOP but I'd buy LIHOP if truth be told. I'm that distrusting and suspicious of the Bush/Cheney regime. However, I do think Al Qaeda had a hand to play and I think its leaders are just as blood thirsty and destructive as groups like the Khmer Rouge. Their intentions aren't just for self-rule and peace but rather a large scale showdown between their extreme version of Islam vs. moderate forces in the middle east. If anything the US is just a tool and a foil to this end.

We will have to engage Al Qaeda somewhere in the world. To me, Afghanistan is the only logical choice right now. We can't just ignore the issue away.

I know this doesn't sound very liberal or progressive. However, I just don't have a lot of compassion for Al Qaeda, their vision for the world, or their means of political and social expression. I do however have a lot of compassion for the innocents caught in the crossfire. Whatever methods we employ, the least amount of collateral damage is imperitave even though it is unavoidable.

Nonetheless, if we suffer another major attack under Obama, liberalism will be the biggest casualty of all. We are at the precipice of climate change cataclysm as well as a peak oil calamity of epic proportions. With a successful Obama Presidency, there's a possibility we might head into the next 30 years with policies in place that will be better off for the world when we face those two monumental transformations. On the other hand, an unsuccessful Obama Presidency means we will likely embrace much of the failed policies of the oil-backed right wing and head us back to pseudo-fascism. That's the last place in the world we want to head when they finally admit, "hey folks, we are half through our oil and we can no longer support the world's population, we've kind of been lying all along...get ready for mass starvation and large scale open war". Let there be no doubt, a large scale terrorist attack on our country, if following a large reduction of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, will raise the odds of one term for Obama and then you will be hailing to President Palin or some other representative of the American-Taliban. In other words, if you are gay, a minority, or female, pray that we kill Osama Bin Laden and skullfuck the Taliban.

Obama is not dumb. In fact, he's really kind of smart. And strategic. And steady. And shrewd. And insightful. He wasn't supposed to be President, and yet there he is. To a certain extent, you have to lend him some trust. I said lend, not give. He deserves the loan. But if over time, he does not live up to the bargain, I think everyone is well within their rights to withdraw that trust. But until then, a good leader needs good followers. There's no reason to go this far only to turn our backs on him.

People have every right to be skeptical. We've been lead down the primrose path ever since Carter was shot down while warning us that the end of the age-of-oil was within our grandchildren's lifetimes. You see, the US had it's experience of domestic peak oil in the 1970's. It was at that time we doubled-down on the doctrine which meant more war for more oil. This has obviously been our modus operandi ever since, peaking with the pure fantasy also known as Bush foreign policy. But I believe Obama is a real change. Even though he means to extend some of the mechanics of what was in place from Bush, doesn't mean his intentions, goals, or endpoints are the same.

As for Afghanistan itself, the place where "empires go to die". I'm sorry but the Taliban and Al Qaeda there are just people. They don't have adamantium skeletons or keep kryptonite in their pockets. The mountains may be steep and the cultural traditions may be prohibitive to any sort of colonial conquest but as long as conquest is not our aim, our hurdles for success won't be nearly as high as they were in Iraq.

The fantasy of Iraq, as it evolved, was to create a permanent safe military and oil producing haven for the United States in order to stave off the effects of peak oil as well as conquer the middle east. The scope of what the neoconservatives originally wanted to do was on an imperial scale hearkening back to Stalin and Hitler. That's not what Obama is doing in Afghanistan. This will make the job immensely easier. It's one thing to try to break and rebuild a whole country, it's another to hunt down and kill a bunch of criminals. As long as we give more money and security to the people of the region than the Taliban does, the Taliban will have a much harder time than we will. Clean water, electricity, food, and safety will be our keys to success. Although the Taliban and Al Qaeda have redundant resources throughout the Arab world, we can dry some of that up with good will made elsewhere (hopefully in places like Palestine). Also, we will always have deeper pockets, better weapons, and better trained armed forces.

So, I have to conclude this with saying I'm glad we are drawing down in Iraq and satisfied with an end goal of honoring the SOFA by 2011. I'm also satisfied that we are going to apply more pressure directly to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan for the reasons I listed above. Expect us to be there throughout Obama's first term, and possibly his second. This has been a generational struggle and will continue to be so until they smolder out. The latter will only happen when we are a fair broker of peace between Palestine and Israel, have more honest intentions in Iraq (which we are now seeing), and when the whole region is less vital to the world's energy supply (hence, another reason to go Green).